~ Weight, Sex, and Marriage (and Motherhood); aka How to Raise Adrenaline Starved Thrill-seekers and Still be Fat and Happy.

IKEA Meltdown

Tony and I packed up the truck and headed for the big city. We have been rushing around like crazy people trying to furnish our new place in four days. I feel like we are on some reality TV show on HGTV. Side note: For someone who grew up without a TV, I spend a lot of time in front of one, which is further evidence of my very scientific and mathematical theory that two out of three offspring will grow up to have the inverse values of their parents – the Kipster reads so much, he doesn’t even know what reality TV character he is named after.

So drink up mommies – just kidding, give up wine for one week and I promise you will lose 10 pounds (of course you have to give up bread, crackers, chips, pasta, rice, sugar, fruit, nuts, milk, and anything listed on the IKEA menu in the checkout area when you are STARVING).

Yesterday we shopped, today we are putting together furniture and picking out paint colors, and then tomorrow we paint. It has been fun, but exhausting. I hit my low in IKEA. We had never purchased anything at IKEA before, so we didn’t know how things worked. I suggested we walk through once and then go back and pick stuff out.

Those of you in the know, are thinking, “What an idiot!” Midway through, we realized we had made a big mistake. Finally we asked an IKEA “co-worker” for some help. “OOOOH, I get it.” Oh my god, it was like being on The Amazing Race when they didn’t know they needed the rock with the fossil on it that they had spent hours looking for in order to get their dinner from the fish merchant in the next town, so they threw the rock in the river; then they had to go back. Only we didn’t have to repel down anything.

When we finally got to the self-serve warehouse and began loading a shopping cart (nope that won’t work, guess where the flat-bed carts were – somewhere in Scandinavia) . . . we found our headboard, but there was a little arrow saying, “Most queen and king size beds require slats and a center bar.” What? Everything is in boxes with really TINY print (guess where my glasses were – on the other side of Scandinavia in the car). Tony finally says I’ll go back to where we saw the bed and see what we need and get the numbers. This is like going back to the last continent!

I should have said, “You’re my hero,” but I didn’t take my “menopause” pill yesterday so instead I just sunk to the floor and sulked. The smell of cinnamon rolls with rich cream cheese frosting wafted through the air. “I’m allergic to cinnamon rolls, I’m allergic to cinnamon rolls, I’m allergic to cinnamon rolls . . . if I eat a cinnamon roll I will die,” I repeated to myself as I waited for Tony. I’ll spare you the details of loading the truck in a handicap zone . . . .

Back on the road at 5:00 p.m. on a Thursday evening on Interstate 80. “I know a shortcut,” I say and direct Tony (there was way too much backseat driving on my part yesterday – plan to take the menopause pill today) to an access road that runs along the Bay. Gosh, lots of people know about this shortcut . . . . We sit in silence, not moving, looking out at the joggers and windsurfers, and people walking their dogs at a much faster rate than we are going.

Finally, Tony breaks the silence. “Do you know there is such a thing as H3O?” he asks. ”I was just thinking how years ago my car would overheat in these conditions,” he continues and then proceeds to explain the chemical make up of heavy water and engine coolant.

“You know what I was thinking?” I ask.

“What?”

“That this would be a horrible place to be if there was a tsunami right now.”

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2 thoughts on “IKEA Meltdown”

Haaaw, I’ve just discovered your blog and cannot get enough, hooray!
In the interest of being slightly anal, though, I’ll just say that I think it should be “rappel down something”, not repel.
It’s a French word, and humour me.
Please.

I’m happy that you found my blog and that you read it closely enough that you found a spelling error (although I am a horrible speller so maybe you didn’t read all that closely :-) ). I am sort of taking a break right now – only posting when I feel like I have something worthwhile to say, but thanks so much for your visit. I subscribed to your blog and will be reading quietly.